Maybe forget
civilization, culture and definitely religion. With one good natural disaster,
all that is revealed for what it is—a reassuring ruse. Maybe we're part of
something much bigger than western civilization or eastern civilization or
Buddha or Zen or ancient history or any history at all. I'm just saying this:
Let's say.

Instead, maybe
we're all particles or lens or filters or I don't know what. But increasingly
people everywhere are starting to say that at the very least we're all
connected. But then if we're all connected, how come our primary experience in
this life is being alone? Huh? Maybe we're all connected but mostly in denial
about it. Our bodies are definitely not connected. We spend a good deal of time
looking at each other and taking account of the differences.

Let's say we're
like receivers or filters all existing in a boundless sea of consciousness
(whatever THAT is) or some kind of energy. We could call it a flux. And we're
all either tuned in or not just like a radio can be tuned into a station or not
but it's still surrounded by the radio waves. I think people who are in denial
about being connected simply keep themselves out of tune with the flux.

Like, that
homeless guy's not connected to me. That Muslim guy's not connected to me. I'm
not connected to that gambler, that drag queen, that hedge fund trader,
that...fill in the blank.

Until there's a
disaster.

Now saying that
we're all suddenly connected when there's a flood is a little too simple. First
of all, there's no fairness in a flood. Not everyone gets the same dose. Some
lose their stuff, some lose their animals, some lose their lives. And some get
insurance while others get nothing. If you never listened to your father
telling you that "life isn't fair," there's nothing like a flood to
bring home the lesson.

But everyone gets
compassion, right? Our flood brought out the very best in everyone: the whole
community. People left their own broken homes to go help people whose homes
were even more broken. Or gone altogether. And people opened their homes and
savings to those in need. Kids grew up and learned they were a needed part of
the scene. Generally people cared about all sorts of things and situations that
normally don't touch their lives. There's a lot of community talk.

I called a friend
in New Jersey though, and it's
not the same everywhere.

"How'd you do
in the flood down there?" I asked.

"It's crazy,
there's silt and mud everywhere. Lots of trees came down and no one has power.
The internet's down and we only have cell phones."

So then I tell my
version. I tell him about washed out bridges and roads; the caskets floating
wildly down a ruptured river and the toxic mud filling up the elementary
schools. But I also tell him how amazing everyone is and how everybody is
helping each other. I say how the power of community is incredible, right?

"Even before
the sun came out there were fund raisers and relief parties. I gotta say,
there's nothing like a disaster to make ya realize how lucky we are to have
each other. We have three people camping in our living room and another group
just showed up with food for everyone."

There was a pause
on the other end of the phone and then my friend said in a disbelieving tone, "Well,
maybe that's how it goes up there but not down here. Down here we sit on the
front porch with a gun, waiting for the looters." Oh.

Like I said, some
people are maybe in denial about being tuned in to the flux. I got a lot of
phone calls the first day after the flood. How ya doing? Saw it in the papers.
That sort of thing. A few of my out-of-state customers also called to inquire.
A buddy of mine runs a big woodworking shop that specializes in conference
tables for the Fortune 500 set. He's been at it for three decades. Says he's
never had a visit from his customers until the flood. Now they're giving tours
about once a week.

"That's
pretty cool!" I said. "So they're coming all the way up from the city
just to see how you're doing and show support. That's so great."

"Huh?No, they're coming up to see if they should
pull their orders. They're worried that we might not make their schedule."

I thought about
that three days later when a customer of mine called from out of state. He had
called right after the flood to get the inside poop about the storm but now he
was calling about his job. He was wondering why I hadn't been on the conference
call yesterday.

"Yeah, sorry
about that," I said, recalling that I had spent the day working on
re-establishing water to my house and family.

"We still
don't have any water or power. You know what I mean?"

"Oh. Yeah,
that's a bummer. But we're having another conference call at the end of the
week. You can make that one, right? It's not for three days."

The guy had no
clue. He was definitely not tuned into the same flux I was into. It seems just
a little time or distance and the power of a natural disaster wanes
dramatically.

It's true. When
was the last time you thought about the people recently hit by the tsunami in Japan
or the one that wiped out Indonesia
in 2004? Krakatau? And closer to home, how about the
last time you considered the Haitian plight or even what's become of New
Orleans? This isn't a guilt trip. I'm just saying that we forget a lot of huge
disasters pretty quickly—unless we're in 'em.

The media markets
these disasters and so they need to rotate their inventory. It's just a simple
business thing, you understand. But every once in a while, there's a calamity
with longer shelf life. For instance, the 9/11 Twin Towers bombing has real
staying power. Manmade disasters like Pearl Harbor, The
Holocaust or even Vietnam
seem to lend themselves to "We Shall Never Forget" treatments. I
think maybe that's because we can paint them as good guys against bad; very
black and white. Natural disasters are harder that way. I mean who wants to say
Nature is the bad guy? That's very out of fashion in case you haven't noticed.

This is where
things like civilization, religion and culture start to look pallid. Because
huge natural disasters reduce us to what we really don't want to be—just
another species in the web of life. This might not be so bothersome if it
weren't for the fact that more than 99 percent of all the species that have
ever existed are now extinct.1 Not great odds. It's so disorienting to think about all the amazing stuff
humans have accomplished over the years being wiped out that people just become
desperate for an explanation. Enter religion or science—pick your flavor.

And so I'm just
saying maybe we're not all separate species but simply different expressions of
the same species. Like a liver, kidney, heart and stomach are all different
things but they're not separate things because they're all parts of the body. This
could explain the inconsistent way we're all connected, the way people like to
say right after a disaster. This could explain why we seem to forget about
natural disasters that don't directly affect us. Using the body metaphor, if a
kidney is facing huge adversity the rest of the body might not really bring
that into focus. Sure, there's a ripple throughout the system, but it doesn't
bring things to a halt.

So I'm suggesting
maybe it's not just with people but with everything. Maybe we're also connected
to the horses and the worms and the birds and the mushrooms. (Now you're
thinking maybe I'm getting a little too connected to the mushrooms.)Isn't that the web of life we hear about all
the time? Maybe every species is simply a different expression or part of the
whole deal. That could explain all sorts of paranormal behavior, clairvoyance,
channeling, horse whispering, bird migrations, parasites...really everything.
Even the way we behave during natural catastrophes.

Animals
instinctively try to avoid perishing in a natural disaster, but they don't get
too disoriented about those who can't (unless it's their offspring). They seem
to accept the innate order of things and move back into their inborn rhythms
and natural cycles. Of course, they don't have a media culture, science or
religion to help them reflect on the "meaning" of it all. And that's
where we're peculiar.

We do reflect on
the meaning of it all and doing so we employ empathy, sympathy and compassion.
The ache felt when we see a wrecked schoolhouse or a buried farm is as real as
the sun and the mountain it’s setting behind. Our instincts are split. The
palpable pain of local disaster drives us to reach out. But the distant plight
of others is either unknown or quickly forgotten.

Maybe we only
invented stories so one part of us can remind the other parts that we're here.